By default, only members of “Power Users” or “Administrators” groups can share folders or printers. Sometimes this is not enough – sometimes we want to allow specific users to have a possibility to share some folders but nothing more. Unfortunately there is no graphical tool in Windows XP or in any other version of Windows, which can give us a possibility to do that.
However, there is a great tool called “TweakUI” (created by Microsoft), which can change specific Access Lists in the registry, so we can give anyone we want the right to share folders or printers. To make this happen you must do the following steps:
- Download and install TweakUI (you can get it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx)
- Launch it and go to “Access Control” tab.
- Now give the same rights for the users or groups you want to be able to share folders, like they are set for “Power Users” in the following categories:
- Manage file/print server connections
- Manage file shares
- Manage print shares
- Apply the changes and reboot the system.
From now, the specified in step 3 users or groups will have the right to share folders. It is wise, to create a group called for example “Share Creators”, give it the mentioned earlier rights and put all the users we want to share folders into that group.